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Friday, 17 February 2012

Diving with Cathy

One of the best gifts and opportunities I have had was to spend the day with Cathy Church. If you don't know who she is, Google her right now and then come back here. She's one of the best photographers above and below water of this generation and we had the good fortune to spend the day with her, to trade opinions, discuss techniques and learn some new tricks.Cathy took a look at some of my previous work and was suitably impressed with it if I do say so myself (so it's not just me that has a high opinion of my work!)

The gateway to enlightenment......

Cathy herself is quite a character and has been there, seen it and done it. She's like your favourite Auntie who's had a couple of gins! She's just so friendly, enthusiastic and a real lively character.

With just the four of us on Cathy's private boat (myself, Jill, Cathy and T to drive the boat) there was no rush to the day and we had plenty of opportunity for discussion, especially as Cathy had yet to see or use a Sony ILS camera system, so the pupil got to become the teacher for a little while.

We hit Orange Canyon which is one of Cathy's favourite places for photography due to the colours and clarity. She also took plenty of time to coach Jill on how to be the perfect model in the water.

Cathy gives Jill some last minute advice before the shoot

Also over the next several days, Cathy gave me access to her extensive collection of ULCS kit to experiment and play with which shows great trust on her part!

"Left a bit, right a bit, down a bit, shoot!"

So I got to play with some nice kit over the course of the week and try things on my own I wouldn't have been able to achieve back home without a great deal of time and expense. I did spend far too much money in her shop afterwards though, but hey, perfection always comes at a price.

Tranquility

Cathy also has the same approach to photography as myself which is there are no rules to photography. Play, adjust, experiment. Photography doesn't need to be difficult it just takes a little patience to play around to achieve something that you are happy with.

It's the little things in life

And we also spent a good second dive bimbling around doing macro shots (which is always dear to my heart) despite the lack of small critters on the Islands. You can set up some interesting shots if you try hard enough.

Cathy "borrows" some of my shots from the day... ;-)

The day was awesome and I learned a few things as well as the secret to everything in life. Unfortunately I can't tell you what it is but if you really want to know then I strongly suggest you go and spend time with Cathy and maybe, just maybe she will tell you what the secret to everything in life is........